Three holes drilled to provide material for pre-feasibility testwork returned results such as:

  • 125.6m grading 10.1% total graphitic carbon from surface;
  • 152.6m at 9.6% TGC from surface; and
  • 100.2m at 9% TGC from a down-hole depth of just 1.4m.

Kingsland Minerals (ASX:KNG) is also preparing material from these holes for offtake partner Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, which will use them to determine whether Leliyn graphite feedstock is suitable for processing into spherical graphite, a key component in battery anodes.

It has a binding offtake agreement with Quinbrook that covers graphite concentrate produced from Leliyn for processing into value-added products at a facility in Darwin.

Graphite tends to make up about 30% of an EV battery by weight, oftenrequiring about 70kg of material per unit.

“These high-grade results from surface, which are within the scoping study open pit design, again highlight the strong development potential of Leliyn,” managing director Richard Maddocks said.

“We are pleased to provide Quinbrook with a good representative sample of graphitic schist for advanced test-work.

“In addition, the recent approval of our infill drilling proposal for up to 140 holes means that we are now in a position to be able to significantly upgrade the mineral resource.”

The three holes totalling 380m were drilled in October/November 2025 within the initial scoping study pit design along the graphitic schist unit.

This was designed to recover 6000kg of material for PFS level test work to optimise crushing, grinding and flotation parameters.

Material from this drilling will also be made available to Quinbrook, who will conduct their own test work aimed at qualifying Leliyn graphite concentrate for eventual use as battery anode material.

Leliyn has a resource of 192.5Mt at 7.3% total graphitic carbon, one of the largest undeveloped graphite deposits in Australia.

The scoping study previously estimated the project could produce ~662,000t of graphite concentrate during a 6.9-year processing period for average annual production of ~95,000t graphite concentrate.

This will generate life of mine revenue of $1.05bn with an estimated operating pre-tax cash margin of $563m, capital costs of ~$342.7m and a payback of four years.

Pre-feasibility studies are currently underway to provide greater certainty.

As part of the PFS, KNG will carry out drilling to upgrade Leliyn’s inferred resource to the indicated and measured JORC categories, targeting 60-70 million tonnes of the existing 192.5Mt at 7.3% total graphitic carbon resource.

Upgrading more of the resource into the indicated category could improve processing throughput.